


Mischief Lost, Mischief Found

by Anonymous



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Kinda, Loki (Marvel) Lives, ignores endgame, it's complicated - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-26 18:57:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18722983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Loki had a plan for everything, even his death. Attaching a piece of himself to an unassuming and rather boring mortal for safe keeping, he had an insurance plan. But now he has to use it, and living in the mind of said mortal is going to prove a challenge.





	1. The Curious Case of Emma Green

**Author's Note:**

> Let's all pretend Thor went for the head, and everything is (mostly) fine now. 
> 
> Don't @ me about Endgame, I'm still sad.
> 
> Written mostly with/for a friend. Let's get Loki back.

A dream, repeating and repeating forever. A small, very sterile white room. Sparsely decorated, but rather beautiful nevertheless. In this white room, on a bed, in the corner, rested a man. Emma could never make out the face - the whole dream seemed as if viewed through a foggy lense - but she felt what should could only define as his aura. The color green, and a powerful air of authority. There was something else, deeper, darker, sadder... but she wasn’t close enough to feel it completely. To understand it.

Curiously, he was repeating the same motion, over and over again. One arm tucked behind his head, the other tossing something resembling a cup in the air, catching it, and tossing it up again. Emma heard the clank of the cup each time he caught it. He seemed bored, as if he didn’t even notice her.

The dream always ended the same way. She would take a few steps towards the bed, to try to make out the man’s face, and he would pause. After a moment, he would turn his undefined features in her direction, finally acknowledging her presence, and in that instant Emma would wake before she could make out anything else.

Emma remembered each time she had this dream, could recall it easily. These days it was coming more and more often.

“Are you falling asleep at your desk again?” A voice very familiar to Emma asked from just outside her door.

Emma immediately felt the grogginess leave her, jolted awake and alive by her friend, Lilly. Emma’s brain was busy absorbing all the information about her current situation. It seems she had, indeed, fallen asleep at her laptop. Again. Grad school hadn’t given much time for anything else, but she had a part-time job as a receptionist at a local law firm anyway.

She needed to do less sleeping and more studying.

 _Boring_. Emma shook her head. “Who? Me? Never.” She joked to herself, letting out a yawn.

The dream had become mundane, a normal part of her day. Something Emma had almost come to expect.

“Yes, okay?” Emma spoke loud enough so that her friend could hear as she set up, stretching her muscles, turning her body at the waist from side to side and touching her fingers to her toes briefly. 

“Well, you told me to make sure you were studying before I left for home. … Soooo, are you studying?” Lilly called out from the living room of their shared student apartment, one of the few perks of being graduate students.

“No, but soon... _Mom_.” Emma called back, only a hint of teasing in her voice.

“You know better than to call me that,” There was a pause, the sound of keys shuffling in Lilly’s large purse. “Bye, Emma. I know you worry so I’ll text you when I make it.” Emma could hear Lilly opening the front door to the apartment and taking a step outside. Another pause, as if Lilly forgot something. “You know the rules…,” she began.

“No boys in the apartment.” Lilly and Emma finished the joke in unison. They were both hopelessly single, so this was very much an inside joke between them. 

A few moments later, when Emma stepped out of her room to make her way to the restroom before she could resume being productive, there was indeed a boy in the apartment. On their brown couch sat a familiar looking man. Legs crossed, green eyes shining like emeralds with knowing and mischief, and thin lips stretched into a grin.

“Hello, boring little mortal.”

Emma’s jaw was going to need to be picked up off the floor. Along with her phone she just dropped. “Ugh, no shoes on the couch?”


	2. The Curious Case of Loki, the Real Boy

The only response Emma received was a breathy laugh. The...man in her apartment, he had an accent. Her brain was spending far too much time and energy trying to place it when she should be doing something else. Like calling the cops, maybe.

“Try again.” He spoke. British! It was British!

So she did. “Hi! I’m Emma. What the fuck are you doing in my apartment, and why shouldn’t I call the c-”

“I am Loki, little mortal. And the first thing you should know is that I can not hurt you.”

Emma lifted her eyebrow, unconvinced. “You poofed into my apartment, I’ve never met you before, and I should just...trust you?”

Wait. Loki. Loooww-keyyyy. That name sounds…

“You shouldn’t trust anyone.” Loki spoke, distracting Emma from her thoughts and locking eyes with her. “Instead, see for yourself. Attempt to harm me.”

Emma blinked. “Excuse me?”

Loki just rolled his eyes, wanting the conversation to move forward. “You heard m-”

Before Loki could finish his words, she threw her phone that she had since picked up at him. The thick blue case around her phone might do some damage, she figured. Instead, the phone went right through Loki, as if he was air, and hit the couch cushion. The phone bounced and fell safely on the carpet below.

“I can not hurt you.” Loki repeated, crossing his arms now. “Nor would it be in my best interest to do so.”

Emma, now even more confused, opened her mouth to speak but found she couldn’t actualize the first question she wanted to ask. After a few moments of opening her mouth, and closing it back, she finally located the question she wished to ask. “Alright, fine. I’ll bite. Why is not hurting me in your best interest?”

Loki grinned again, pleased. “Now you’re asking the right questions, little mortal.”

“Why do you keep calling me that? You’re mortal, too.”

Loki’s grin stretched. Something clicked for Emma. “Then what are you?”

“I’m Asgardian. Loki, brother to Thor. The Avenger. And right now, he thinks me dead, as do the rest of the nine realms.” It was a simple statement, said with the same ease as everything else he’d spoken. 

“So, you’re a good guy?” Emma knew of Thor, obviously, and her mind conjured up the most recent news article about him and the other Avengers saving the world. This time from a giant purple guy.

“I’m the brother of Thor.” Loki repeated. Emma couldn’t help but noticed how they looked … almost like exact opposites. Blonde versus dark hair, muscular versus lean, dark green verses light blue eyes. Even the way they spoke was at odds.

Emma squinted, shifting her head to the side. “You’re avoiding the question. And also, if you’re so important, why the fuck are you in my apartment?” A thought crossed her mind, so she continued. “And why did my phone go right through you?”

“Both questions have the same answer.” Loki relaxed a bit, uncrossing his legs and sitting back into the couch, as if he had a long story to tell. “I am part of you, and you are now part of me.”

“Wha-what?” Emma’s voice jumped a few octaves..

“During what you call the Battle of New York, I left a piece of myself within you. An insurance policy, if you will.” He paused. “It was many years ago, I suppose I shouldn’t expect you to remember. But I am dead. The piece of me that lives on in you is the only part that lives on.”

Emma looked down to the off-white carpet, now lost in thought. Letting her brain put the pieces of what he was saying together. “So, I’m a horcrux. And you’re a … hallucination?”

Loki chuckled. “I’m more than a hallucination. I’m here, and I simply wish to exist in a physical form again.” 

If he was Thor’s brother, he was worth helping. Saving. Even if he wasn’t, he was here, and had some kind of powers. He could save people, do more good with his powers than Emma ever could. “Objectively, you have as much right to exist as I do, so, I guess if I can help, I-” Something else clicked for Emma in the moment. 

Loki. The Battle of New York. This is _the guy_. “You’re not a good guy, are you?”

“Thor’s brother, little mortal. Never said I was good.”


End file.
